Common Questions About Tarot
What is Tarot?
Tarot is often confused with fortune telling, but it’s much more than predicting future events. People use Tarot to gain deep insight into their lives, so they can make better choices in relationships and everyday situations. It’s a method for accessing and understanding your subconscious desires and for overcoming your deepest fears. A Tarot deck is filled with symbols and archetypal images that resonate within a reader’s subconscious mind, and from these subtle keys they offer information and messages to answer questions about your life. Tarot cards are like a map of your whole existence — they help you get from A to B while taking into account the past, present and future at the same time!
Are Tarot cards tools of the devil?
Tarot was originally designed as part of a card game called tarocchi. It’s a game that is still played in some European countries. As part of a crackdown on gambling, the Church forbid the use of dice and cards and claimed these games were evil. In order to keep the general population under the control of the Church, most of their leaders continue to vilify Tarot in order that their congregation never discover their fate is not predetermined by its god.
Are Free Tarot Readings Worth a Try?
There are many websites offering free Tarot readings, and most of these are based on computer-generated spreads with overly-simplistic interpretations. These websites can only give basic generalisations that you have to try and fit into your circumstances. Ever tried squeezing a round peg into a square hole? You’re fooling yourself if you believe it’s a perfect match!
When you have a person to talk to, this reader can put the information from the cards into the context of the question and you will receive a meaningful response, rather than a paragraph of text based on a card’s overall meaning. A professional reader can also suggest the timing of when particular events are likely to occur — you can’t get that from a robotic card reader.
Free Tarot readings are basic and non-specific. When you are in need of guidance, that’s not what you want from a reading. Find a professional reader who will listen to your question and offer specific information that will help you make informed decisions about important areas of your life. Or buy a good Tarot book and learn the art of divination, so you can do insightful, free Tarot readings for yourself at any time!
How long does it take to learn how to use Tarot cards?
You can learn the fundamentals of Tarot in a few hours, but like everything in life, the more you research, study, and practice a skill, the more likely you are to master it.
Can you tell the future with Tarot cards?
Tarot cards provide an excellent window to a person’s nature, their patterns of belief, and the direction they are heading. In broad terms this means you can make predictions about a person’s possible future based upon their current path. Am I being vague about this? Yes, a little, because Tarot cards aren’t going to give you a prediction about the next lottery numbers. Their role is to provide guidance about future options and the general likelihood of things turning out in your favour or not.
How do Tarot Cards Work?
In a Tarot reading you gain clarity about past decisions, present situations, and future possibilities too. But how is this possible? How can a deck of 78 cards give you limitless information about circumstances you are not consciously aware of? Why is it that when you are doing a reading about relationships that a card such as The Lovers invariably turns up? Or if you are at a critical turning point in your life, why is it that a powerful Major Arcana card often features in the reading? Perhaps it’s simply synchronicity, where meaningful cards turn up at the right time, but I think there’s more to it than that.
When you consciously try to work out answers to questions, you are only using information you’re already familiar with. But when you shuffle a deck of Tarot cards and allow your mind to open itself to all the possible outcomes, the subconscious becomes free to express itself.
Your subconscious knows things about your life and circumstances that your objective mind doesn’t realise — and sometimes consciously ignores. This deepest part of your mind is more aware of the direction of your life than you think, so when you are doing a Tarot reading for yourself, the cards can reveal your innermost thoughts and desires.
When you are doing a Tarot reading for another person and you gain information about a situation that you could not possibly know by normal means, it can seem like there’s a supernatural influence at work, but realise that on many levels, you are linked to all other beings on this planet.
The entire universe is interconnected. Everyone’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and fears are being broadcast into the universe, and during a Tarot reading, the symbols on the cards guides you to the information you already know on some inner level of the psyche.
Are Tarot Cards Safe?
People who don’t know anything about Tarot sometimes ask, “Is it safe to use Tarot cards?” Perhaps they mean, “Will evil spirits make an attack through the cards?” Or perhaps they worry that their psyche may be negatively influenced by ‘dark’ cards such as The Devil, or Death.
There is no need to worry — Tarot cards are illustrations, not magical entities. Tarot cards feature religious figures, the sun & moon, angels, lovers, workers, and groups of friends. Tarot cards show images of daily life, as well as the path to spiritual enlightenment.
In a pack of normal playing cards, why fear The Joker? It’s just a card. In Dungeons and Dragons there are characters such as goblins and sorcerers — is that safe? Of course! It’s just a fantasy role-playing game. In the Harry Potter books there are monsters and wizards — are these books safe to read? Yes! They are just clever stories.
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” There is no evil in Tarot, just as there is no evil in games and stories featuring some ‘magical’ characters. Religious people only fear Tarot because they don’t know anything about it. They are too afraid to research the true nature of Tarot for themselves, so they spread misinformation to try and scare others away from it. Their approach may be well-intended, but it just shows their ignorance of the subject.
There is nothing to fear about Tarot. For many centuries it was used as a game. Now you can use it to discover more about your inner nature. You can read the cards to work out how you can develop your strengths so you can achieve your goals. And you can interpret Tarot’s beautiful imagery to see how you are progressing along the spiritual path.
Are Tarot cards safe? Yes indeed! They are a tool for self-discovery and a way to access your inner wisdom.
Can Anyone Do A Tarot Reading?
What does it take to be a Tarot reader? Do you have to be psychic? No! Do you have to study for years? No! All you need is an open mind and a willingness to listen to your intuition.
Of course, it’s much easier to do a reading when you know a bit about the cards. For example it’s handy to understand which area of life each suit relates to. And when Major Arcana cards turn up in a spread, it’s nice to be able to describe the type of spiritual impact they are revealing about a person’s life, but anyone can discover this information with some research on a well-informed website, or by delving into a good Tarot book.
Do you need to have special powers to do a reading? Definitely not. Learn some basic information, decide on a simple spread, and give it a go. Through practice you’ll gain confidence and with confidence you’ll listen more closely to your intuition. The key to being able to do an accurate Tarot reading is to listen to guidance from your inner self, and everyone can do this, they just need to be aware of their own powers of perception.
How Often is Too Often?
When you begin studying Tarot, it can be tempting to do readings about anything and everything. This is great, because you get loads of practice, and you can quickly discover how often you are getting the interpretations right. But how often can you do readings? How much is too much?
While learning Tarot, you may as well do lots of readings while you are feeling enthusiastic about the process. There’s no rule that states you should only do one Tarot reading a day! However, if it becomes an obsession, maybe it’s time to re-evaluate.
Study the symbols on your cards, meditate on the images, play with them, and do Tarot card readings as often as you like, but don’t become dependent on their advice about trivial matters. No-one likes a fanatic!
What about asking others for Tarot readings? How often is too often? Once again, don’t become dependent on someone else’s advice on how to run your life, even if that information is coming from the wisdom of the Tarot. Your focus on Tarot should be about receiving guidance, not about relying on another person to tell you what decisions to make.
Should You Trust Tarot Cards?
Your Tarot cards are a way to unveil messages from your inner self. Through the symbols on the cards you gain insight about your past, awareness about your present circumstances, and visions of a possible future.
How do you know if the information discovered through Tarot cards is correct? You test it in each reading! When laying out the cards it’s usual to incorporate positions for the past, present, and near future…and when you see how relevant the cards are for describing your recent past, and when you notice how appropriate they are in expressing your present situation, it gives you the confidence to trust predictions about your future too.
Should you trust Tarot cards? You can answer this for yourself by doing a reading or two and recording your interpretations. As events unfold and you look back at your reading, you’ll be surprised at how accurate Tarot is! You’ll find yourself understanding that you can trust your Tarot cards to bring insight to your life.
Do you have to be psychic to use Tarot cards?
Anyone can use Tarot cards. The standard Tarot deck is fully illustrated, so it’s easy to work out the message the image is sending to you. For example, a picture of a heart pierced by swords is obviously a broken heart…and an image of people dancing is clearly a celebration. You don’t have to be psychic to work that out. Tarot cards sometimes show goddesses and mythic beings in strange environments, which may seem like strange sights, but the colours surrounding the main character and the pose of the subject usually gives an indication as to what the card represents. Other cards show people interacting in everyday situations just like yours: some characters are dancing and others are working; some are happy and others are sad; sometimes they are collaborating and in other situations they are fighting…look at the images and think about how you’d respond in those circumstances. It’s fairly simple to interpret the meanings of these cards just by looking at the image; you don’t have to connect to psychic realms to do a Tarot reading.
What type of Tarot cards are best?
If you are a beginner to Tarot, I suggest purchasing the standard Rider-Waite deck. It’s sometimes called the Rider-Waite-Smith deck in order to acknowledge the artist Pamela Colman Smith. There are many variations of this deck, and many non-standard decks still use the Rider-Waite pack for their inspiration, but when learning Tarot, stick to the basic style until you are familiar with the symbolism and design of these cards. The standard Rider-Waite deck is full of imagery and symbols, making it easier to interpret the answers to your questions.
Where did Tarot cards come from?
You’ll hear lots of theories about the origin of Tarot. Some of the far-fetched ones include Atlantis, ancient Egypt, and Gypsies, but art historians and card researchers all agree that Tarot was developed in Italy around the mid fifteenth century.
How to Know What a Tarot Card Means?
When you deal out your Tarot cards, the whole point of the reading is to give an accurate interpretation, but how do you arrive at the correct meaning of each image?
Some Tarot teachers ask you to memorise the keywords associated with each card, and when the card turns up in a reading you simply recite those words and relate them to the question. For example, if you ask about a possible relationship with a certain person and The Lovers card is dealt into the position for the near future, then you’ll probably suggest that true love and a healthy partnership is on its way. This tactic is useful to a degree, but what if a card such as the Four of Pentacles turns up instead? Standard keywords for that card are “material security” and “financial stability” — so that’s not going to be helpful in a reading about romance.
The best way to understand the meaning of each Tarot card is to look at the symbols in the image when you are doing a reading. Look for something meaningful in the card that relates to the question you have asked. If the Four of Pentacles card appears in a relationship reading, look at the body language of the character in the image and you’ll see that he is holding tight to his pentacles. It shows someone who is selfish and closed up. It doesn’t seem as though this person is going to provide a healthy level of emotional sharing and caring.
Being aware of the symbolism is more important than repeating traditional keywords. To work out the meaning of a card, use your intuition to guide you to the symbols on the image that show you what the card is about. Place that information into the context of the question for the reading and allow your imagination to reveal the message of the card.
Do Tarot Cards Tell the Truth?
Will your Tarot cards offer a truthful vision of your future? They will certainly shine a light on any areas you wish to investigate, and they’ll encourage you to explore some of the beliefs you’ve held about yourself and others.
Tarot cards reflect the truth of the present situation, and it’s up to the reader to interpret it clearly. In a Tarot spread you are going see an honest representation of your life and the lives of others, and you then have to express that information in an unbiased manner.
A good Tarot reader will be without prejudice and will be non-judgemental (about themselves and others) and will base the reading on what they see, rather than imposing their own views on the subject. In other words, a Tarot reading will give an accurate point of view about the circumstances, and it’s up to you to recognise the truth of it during the interpretation.
Tarot is a tool that helps you find and understand the real you. You may not always see what you hope to discover, but the cards will reveal what you need to know! If you accept the truth of the Tarot, you will find your inner wisdom.
Learning from a Tarot Professional
When I went to a New-Age store to buy my first deck of Tarot cards, I realised too late that the person behind the counter knew less about the subject than me. “This will do,” he said. “And here’s a book that will tell you all you need to know.”
But that set of Tarot cards wasn’t appropriate for a beginner. And the book didn’t even relate to that particular deck.
These were the days before the Internet, so there were no websites to offer guidance. And there were not many good books on the subject either. I realised later that a few useful books were available, but they had not found their way to my local book stores.
I wish I had a Tarot teacher when I was learning Tarot. With their help I’d have known the best type of deck to use as a beginner (The Rider-Waite-Smith deck) and which books to buy.
In these modern times of instant connectivity, there are many websites, ebooks, and online classes to provide answers. But which ones are useful and which should you avoid? Don’t wast your precious time sifting through contradictory information or dealing with the sensationalism and ignorance that still surrounds this subject. Learn Tarot from a professional teacher who can show you which resources are helpful. This allows you many extra hours to explore information that is beneficial to your progress and development.
With the support and encouragement of a professional Tarot teacher you will take a step-by-step approach to learning Tarot, discovering the meanings of the cards through your intuition and from insights shared by your mentor.
Even the best athletes and sportsmen in the world make the use of a coach to take their natural talent and enthusiasm to greater heights. So, regardless of whether you are a novice or an experienced practitioner who needs a boost of confidence, you can become a better reader of the cards by learning from me: a Tarot professional.
With more than 35 years of Tarot experience, including decades of teaching, I’ve worked out the best ways to explain the fundamentals and nuances of Tarot. Your Tarot cards are a remarkable source of knowledge of wisdom; allow me to show you how to use them properly, so you can do amazingly accurate Tarot readings. Let’s take this exciting journey together!
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